Footle and Grok

Welcome to Day 3 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.

Today, I decided to pick an item that I knew was true. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. And Guam is the only territory with only one syllable. Simple.

However, I did do research, just in case, and I found something fun. There is a website called howmanysyllables.com. If you ever wondered how to say a word or how many syllables it has, this site has a syllable dictionary (something I had never heard of.) It also has teaching resources and worksheets. One of them lists all fifty states, which is how I figured out that Maine really is the only state with one syllable.

I am impressed that someone created this website because I don’t think about syllables often, but, English is full of confusing words. A good example is “colonel.” It looks like it should have three syllables, but it only has two. Not all words are as simple as “Maine.”

I give this trivia a 10 out of 10. Not only is it true, but it led me to a useful resource.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 2 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

Domestication can be a tricky thing. Just because an animal puts up with humans, does not necessarily mean they are domesticated. Tigers may be trained to do things, but they are still wild animals, while most dogs would bend over backward to please their human. So, when was the last animal domesticated?

According to ThoughtCo., a lot sooner than 4,000 years ago. Yeah, this bit of trivia is bunk. Even though I might debate that ostriches, while farmed by some people, are not truly domesticated, other animals clearly are.

Check out the website of you want a complete list of domesticated animals. This list is of animals domesticated sooner than 4,000 years ago.

• Goose, Germany, 1500 BC
• Mongoose, Egypt, 1500 BC
• Reindeer, Siberia, 1000 BC
• Stingless Bee, Mexico, 300 BC-AD 200
• Turkey, Mexico, 100 BC-AD 100
• Muscovy Duck, South America, AD 100
• Scarlet Macaw, Central America, AD 1000
• Ostrich, South Africa, AD 1866

I give this trivia a 5 out of 10. The five is because I learned something, and zero is for the trivia itself since it is clearly untrue.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks, and on with the post.

Trivia: A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

This is partly true.

Informally, the word jiffy means a quick amount of time, but depending on the context, it can mean minutes or hours. If you say, “I’m going to the store, and I’ll be back in a jiffy,” you don’t mean less than a second. Time is relative.

However, in many formal measurement settings, a jiffy has a much shorter time duration, including, but not limited to, 1/100th of a second. Here is a list of how fast a jiffy is in various industries.

Jiffy Measurements

• In electronics, a jiffy is 1/60 or 1/50 of a second because it describes the period of an alternating current power cycle.
• In computing, a jiffy is variable. It is the time between two ticks of a system timer interrupt, which depends on the frequency. Usually, it is between 1 ms and 10 ms.
• In computer animation, a jiffy is 1/100th of a second and defines playback rate.
• In quantum physics and chemistry, a jiffy is the time it takes for light to travel one fermi or about 3 x 10⁻²⁴ seconds.

Other definitions are even tinier, so your go-to-the-store jiffy doesn’t mean what you think it means. But it also may or may not mean 1/100 of a second, no matter what a dozen trivia bloggers say.

I give this trivia a 7 out of 10. The seven is for all the cool ways a jiffy is used, and zero is for the trivia itself.

I have the coolest library in the world.

The Timberland Regional Library is a system made up of twenty-seven interconnected libraries in five counties. I loved going to the library, browsing the stacks, or putting books on hold, knowing that I had access to any book in any library in the system. It was book nirvana.

Thanks to this weird world, my library has been closed since March. Total bummer. But since my county has moved into phase 3, I can once again check out books starting today. Hooray! Throw confetti!!

There are limitations. I can only get books from my primary library, and it will be curbside pick-up, so I won’t be browsing the stacks. Still, it’s a start. I appreciate all the librarians who are working hard to make this new program work.

Libraries are a vital part of any community, and I support any effort that gets ours up and running.

I have almost finished the library summer reading program. I just need to explore five more words, and here they are.

• lethargic: deficient in alertness or activity
• ken: range of what one can know or understand
• karma: effects of one’s actions that determine his or her destiny
• jurisdiction: the territory within which power can be exercised
• jejune: lacking interest or significance or impact

This list had one of my favorite words (ken) and one I had never heard of (jejune.) Let’s explore the new word.

Jejune is an adjective that means “naive,” “simplistic,” and “superficial.” When it is used to describe ideas or writing, it means “dry and uninteresting.” This is a dull word. (That is its synonym.)

This word comes from the Latin jejunus, which means “empty of food,” “meager,” or “hungry.” People in England in the 1600s actually used the word when talking about food (I bet it was common.) Over time, other things that were meager or empty of meaning were used with jejune, and the definition expanded.

I hope few things in your life are jejune. Instead, let your ken be far-reaching and fulfilling.

How is your summer bucket list going?

I had only a couple of things done on my list of thirty items until my brother and his family visited. I showed my niece (she is ten) the printout on my refrigerator, and she decided we should do as many as possible. Over three days, we did all sorts of fun things (such as making s’mores and playing board games.) She enjoyed marking items off the list.

If your life is busy, and you feel that you will never finish any fun goals, borrow a child. If you have one of your own, great, but if not, don’t worry. There are lots of kids around; you might even be related to some of them. Invite them over and let them decide what to do. Nobody knows how to have fun like a child.

July is almost here, so summer is a third over. I hope you have a lot of fun, even though the world is weird right now. Fun is a state of mind, so make it yours.

My brother and his family headed home this morning. We had so much fun last week, but I am exhausted. Here is my plan for today.

1. Nap
2. Watch movies
3. Nap
4. Run the dishwasher
5. Nap
6. Do laundry
7. Nap

July is going to be a super busy month for me, so this is my weekend to recover from hanging out with four wonderful, energetic children. Today I will cat.

Have you ever played UNO?

My brother and his family are visiting us this week. His children are 10, 9, 6, and 3, and whenever I spend time with them, I always learn something cool. This time I learned to play a new version of UNO called UNO Flip!

This game is played like regular UNO, except there is an extra card. That card flips the cards from the normal side to the dark side. The backs of the cards now have a different version of the UNO! with its own colors.

So, when we are playing with the usual side, and someone plays the flip card, everyone turns their cards to the back, and the game continues. That means if you were close to getting UNO, you might have useless cards. Or you might have devious cards like the one that makes the next person take five cards instead of four or the one that skips everyone (beneficial for getting closer to UNO)

I have played UNO since I was a kid, and I love this game. Now that I know about UNO Flip! I love the game even more. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes UNO. Sometimes you can invent a better mousetrap.

When I was a kid, I loved dinosaurs.

Okay, I love dinosaurs now, but when I was a kid, a lot of children shared my passion. All my friends could identify Brontosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and most definitely Ankylosaurus.

Everyone knew that Ankylosaurus was a tank. It’s back was covered with fused plates, and it had a mace-like tail. At 20 feet long, 6 feet tall, and 5 feet wide, it was a well-protected herbivore. It weighed as much as 4 tons or about two cars worth. It lived in the late-Cretaceous (along with the T-Rex) just before an asteroid smacked into the Yucatan.

It sounds like we know a lot about Ankylosaurus, which is odd because although this dinosaur was discovered in 1906, only three specimens have been found, and none are complete. I’m amazed that I ever heard about this dinosaur.

The big question is, why are fossils of Ankylosaurus so rare? There are two possible answers. One is that the animal itself was unusual. Another explanation is that it lived in an area where bones didn’t fossilize well. Both of these answers are sketchy, so the mystery remains.

I’m glad that I know about the awesome Ankylosaurus and could share it with you. It’s always exciting when there is more to learn about a topic. “I don’t know” is music to a curious ear.

Happy International Fairy Day.

Except for Tinker Bell (who I hated in Peter Pan, but love in Pixie Hollow), I don’t think most Americans think of fairies that often. Disney’s Artemis Fowl went direct to Disney+, and there are fairies in that, but outside of movies and books, they do not affect our lives.

In honor of International Fairy Day, I’d like to share how fairies impacted my young life. Feel free to share if fairies are a part of yours.

When I was a kid, I had a book called Faeries by Brian Froud. It was full of beautiful illustrations of fairies of all types. I was fascinated and explored the pages of this book so often that it fell apart. I still have this book, but it is protected in a 9×12 envelope. I always wished I could play with the fairies in this book, and I think one of the reasons I love forests is that I hope I’ll find a fairy ring or a fairy tree.

“Many trees are the haunts of Faerie. Humans foolish enough to pass by a host-tree late at night find their arms bruised or pinched by small faerie fingers… Or on the other hand, Thorn tree branches can be hung with ribbons and even rags as porpitiating gifts for the faeries.”

Brian Froud and Alan Lee

Luckily, you don’t have to buy a copy of this book for $100 (it was published in 1978) to enjoy some fairy lore. There are lots of books about fairies, including the Pixie Hollow books which are as fun as the movies. Or you could take a walk in the woods and see what you discover.